How to play
Petits chevaux, “little horses”, is an old French casino game: nine numbered toy horses ran round a track, and players bet on which one would stop first. It’s the ancestor of Boule, which kept the same nine numbers and the same bets but swapped the horses for a ball in a bowl. Here the horses are back: nine lanes, one horse each, and the first nose over the chequered line wins.
You start with 1,000 virtual credits.
- Choose a chip: 10, 50, 100 or 500.
- Tap the layout to place it: a single horse, or one of the six even-money bets below the numbers.
- Undo removes your last chip, Clear empties the layout, Rebet repeats the previous bets.
- Press Spin and the race starts. The winning lane lights up gold, winners are paid and the number joins the row of recent results.
Each spot takes 10 to 1,000 credits in steps of 10, and the table holds up to 5,000 per race.
Bets and payouts
| Bet | Horses | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| A single horse, 1 to 9 | 1 | 7 to 1 |
| Red | 2, 4, 7, 9 | 1 to 1 |
| Black | 1, 3, 6, 8 | 1 to 1 |
| Odd | 1, 3, 7, 9 | 1 to 1 |
| Even | 2, 4, 6, 8 | 1 to 1 |
| Low (1–4) | 1, 2, 3, 4 | 1 to 1 |
| High (6–9) | 6, 7, 8, 9 | 1 to 1 |
Horse 5, in gold, is the house’s horse. It belongs to none of the even-money bets: when 5 wins, every red, black, odd, even, low and high bet loses. A bet on horse 5 itself pays 7 to 1 like any other horse.
Example: horse 7 wins. A chip of 20 on 7 returns 160, 50 on red returns 100 (7 is red), 30 on high returns 60, and 10 on horse 3 is lost.
The odds
Every horse has the same chance: 1 in 9 per race. The race you watch is the show; the winner is picked fairly before the horses cross the line.
That makes the house edge 1/9, about 11.1%, on every bet:
- A single horse wins once in 9 races and returns 8 units, one short of the 9 staked.
- An even-money bet covers 4 horses: it wins 4 times in 9 and returns 2 units each time, 8 in all for 9 staked.
That’s much steeper than a roulette wheel (2.70% on a single-zero wheel). The fifth horse does for this game what the zero does for roulette, but it’s one pocket in nine instead of one in 37.
Strategy
- Every bet costs the same. A single horse and red have the same 11.1% edge; they only differ in how often they win (1 in 9 against 4 in 9).
- Keep stakes small. With an edge this size, credits drain faster than at roulette. Smaller chips mean longer sessions.
- The race doesn’t tell you anything. A horse that led early or finished close last time is no more likely to win next time.
If you enjoy Petits Chevaux, try Pick’em Poker or Pineapple next.
